S2 Ep5 | A Transformational Learning Experience

This is Our Time

COLD OPEN WITH NYC SOUNDSCAPE

Fabian - NYC

So what is it we are learning, what is the “there” that we’re heading towards?

Sam VO NARRATION

That was Fabian and I sitting at Chelsea Piers, in New York City, where we met up about three months after Antarctica.

This was us sitting and talking through memories, me digging in with more questions...

Sam VO NARRATION

It felt like a year ago, but last night was the vote, just 12 hours ago.

By the time I crawled into bed, it was really late.

But it was a difficult night. The ship felt like it was in rough seas, and I spent most of the night listening to someone barf in the room next to me.

[3:46] TAPE - Open frame Day after

Dr. Karen Alexander bravely took the floor first.

This is Purvi Gupta

[7:43] TAPE - NYC

Opens with an NYC soundscape

Sam - Now I know I’m in complete sensory overload, much like Antarctica

Fabian - Yeah, Rotheragate for me was such a defining moment

You know there plenty of people whose instinct to go with the majority rule, I didn’t.

My instinct, was, that if can’t take all, can’t take any.

It was me who initiated the blind vote. It was me who goes upstairs and debates the fact that if a small number out of a whole doesn’t want to go, then it is not right for women to go.

And transformational change work doesn’t happen with a textbook. It doesn’t happen because you logically go A, B, C, D E, F, G.

We dealt with the anger that flowed from that, but the next morning, I wish we had fully recorded what happened. You may be the only person who recorded what actually happened.

Sam - The Open Frame discussion?

Fabian - That was transformational

Sam - I’ve got it

Fabian - The poems, the poetry, the ...

Sam - I’ve got it all

Fabian - See that is a transformational moment. No matter how much you didn’t like it. You didn’t like the anger, or the uncertainty. Guess what, that’s where transformation change occurs. It doesn’t happen, the clean, the tight, the controlled moments. It happens when you are forced to confront: I contributed to that, it was my anger, I didn’t have to act that way….

Sam - Yup

Sam VO NARRATION

The microphone was passed around the room, and I can only share a selection of everything that was said here…

TAPE - SHORT SELECTS

Gaia

Fern

[9:19] SamVO NARRATION

At the end of the session, Dr Helen Corney read something she wrote on the ship.

[12:05] Zodiac Landing through icebergs

[14:06] Sam Tape - Whiskey Ice

Sam VO NARRATION

And then, like the day could handle another twist, the Captain and Greg convened a meeting in the common room.

SFX - crowd room tone

Scene TAPE - Greg and Captain come and tell us we are going

[14:52] Greg -

Eye oi oi oi. A heady 24 hours we’ve had.

[19:15] Captain -

It’s a once in a lifetime. Even for us, I mean this is very unusual. Because usually the conditions down here are not favourable, let’s say, the ice conditions, are always hard.

[22:06] Laugh Therapy

[24:50] Rothera Landing

[29:05] - New York City soundscape begins. Sam and Fabian go back to New York

...

Sam - So while I went in to make a 20 minute story, and it turned into a three and a hour epic. And I did this from my kitchen table, off my hard drive, with zero dollars funding, and you know, lots of good will.

Fabian - But listening was never enough for you. Listening was never enough. You started the first podcast by putting yourself in the story. That’s where it started. You’re not a bystander. It’s a myth for you. You’re in boots and all.

[36:09] - Greg

Um, I’ve left Antarctica a lot of times. And I’ve found in that I’ll never know what I’ll feel like when I take the first walk in the streets of Ushuaia. It becomes a bit of a mystery. And it changes from time to time.

[37:21] SAM - Closing Narration

At the end of a cinema verite documentary, there’s often no obvious conclusion drawn--it was a moment in time, and that moment ended, and thus, so did the film.

And while I love this for film, for a podcast, I still feel like I need to wrap, with some music...

…

My instinct told me that GOING would put me inside a story that would grow and unfold, in real time.

...

It’s all brought me to a quiet place inside.

Specifically, it brought me back to Antarctica. At a time when it felt like everything around me was breaking, I had that memory, that experience, to draw from.

And at some point, after a bunch more reflection, I landed on this new, and final conclusion, that I want to share with you.

What that was, and what this is, are the same, when you boil it down. It’s a transformational learning experience.